Can I configure Syslog & SNMP on ESX3i with GUI?

Question

Hi, is the VMware Remote CLI (Command Line Interface), which is not a GUI, the only way to configure Syslog & SNMP on ESX3i?

I would like to have the easiest way possible of having these configured by junior/not really IT staff.

Has anyone thought of implementing an alternative GUI to the CLI?

Are there any Windows friendly alternatives?

I found it hard to google for this, pointers are welcome.

The Vmware Infrastructure Client doesn't seem to cover these configurations, or perhaps the version I have hasn't got this built in yet?

I would like to be sure before giving up, or find out what others are doing.

I am currently on the latest versions supporting ESX3i Client and ESX Server.

Thanks,

Ric

Answer 1

At present there is no way of doing this with a GUI.

You can configure Syslog with a GUI, as explained here:

It is possible to set the syslog server and port from within the VI client. With the VI client (but not the vicfg-syslog.pl command) it is also possible to configure ESXi to write syslog messages to a text file on a VMFS datastore that the ESXi host has access to. This is shown in the below image. It is necessary to format Syslog.Local.DatastorePath value as []//. Folder_name is optional.

But as per the admin guid pdf here:

ESX Server 3i ships with an SNMP management agent different from that which runs in the service console of ESX Server 3. Currently, this SNMP agent supports only SNMP traps, not GETS. This agent is off by default. To use this agent, you must enable the SNMP service, specify at least one community, and configure a trap destination using the remote command‐line command vicfg-snmp. You must target the vicfg-snmp command directly to the ESX Server 3i host.

You cannot use this command with a VirtualCenter Server.

I could not find any alternative ways to have this set up, but one could easily create a GUI that all it does is send remote commands to the console.